Armed man in fear of mass shootings accidentally shoots woman in movie theater

Police say the man suspected of accidentally shooting a stranger at a Renton movie theater told them he carried a firearm because he feared mass shootings, reported the Seattle Times.

Dane Gallion, 29, told officers he took the gun to Regal Cinemas 14 at the Landing on Thursday night because he was “concerned about recent mass shootings in public places,” according to a police account in a probable-cause statement released Saturday.

That same anxiety prompted him to keep the gun unholstered in his waistband, the statement says.

The shooting victim, a woman who was wounded in the shoulder, was in stable condition Saturday, according to a nursing supervisor at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

According to the police account, Gallion gave inconsistent descriptions of how his firearm discharged while at “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”

His father, Donald Gallion, had called the King County sheriff’s dispatch to say his son had returned home extremely upset, claiming the gun had fallen out of his pocket and gone off, police said.

Dane Gallion later told the arresting officer that another moviegoer reached for his crotch and that’s when he accidentally fired the gun, according to the probable-cause statement. Gallion said he fled the theater immediately because he didn’t want to be taken for a mass shooter.

Finally, at the Renton police station, he told another officer that a man had been bothering him, but declined to go into the details, according to the statement. Gallion alleged the gun accidentally went off and scared him, prompting him to leave; he denied having handled the gun. The officer wrote in the report that he didn’t notice any powder burns or injuries to Gallion.

Officers discovered a 9-mm magazine in a trash can at the theater, according to the probable-cause statement, and a single spent shell casing and an unfired bullet under a seat. The injured woman had been sitting in front of that spot.

Police said Gallion told them he had taken medicine for anxiety in the morning and that he’d had a pizza and a 22-ounce beer before the movie.

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